Land Still

[Grand Inquisitor]

In Walking Dude's guantlet thread Bebe mentioned Landstill as an uncommon, yet highly competitive option for the current metagame.  Bebe offered Shockwave's build as an optimal list for the guantlet, however, there seem to be a number of different directions this archetype can be taken.  Since two heads are better than one, and 2,451 heads are better than two...


As a starting point,

Quote
Landstill
Shock Wave (Richard M.)

Lands
  1 Strip Mine
  1 Mountain
  4 Island
  4 Volcanic Island
  4 Wasteland
  4 Mishra's Factory
  4 Faerie Conclave
  1 Wooded Foothills
  1 Library of Alexandria
  1 Flooded Strand

Spells
  1  Ancestral Recall
  1  Time Walk
  1  Black Lotus
  3  Misdirection
  4  Fire/Ice
  4  Standstill
  4  Nevinyrral's Disk
  4  Lightning Bolt
  4  Mana Drain
  4  Force of Will
  1  Lotus Petal
  3  Stifle
  1  Mox Sapphire

Sideboard
  4  Red Elemental Blast
  4  Chalice of the Void
  4  Tormod's Crypt
  3  Maze of Ith

From the (limited) testing I've done with Ur and Ub versions, I've come to the following assumptions as a point of departure for further deck building:

1) Given the number of strips and man-lands the deck requires to function properly, a three color build is out of the question.

2) In order to compete with fish under a standstill, landstill needs to run a full compliment of Strips, Mishra's Factories and Faerie Conclaves.  Given Library of Alexandria's synergy with the rest of the deck, our required components are:

Quote
  1 Strip Mine
  4 Wasteland
  4 Mishra's Factory
  4 Faerie Conclave
  1 Library of Alexandria

3) Regardless of the splashed color, optimal counterspells, a full set of standstills, and the blue power will automatically be part of the skeleton.  While this does include Stifle along with Mana Drain and Force of Will, I do not think this deck necessarily needs Misdirection.  I'm eager to hear feedback from people with more experience with this.  Lastly, Nevinryal's Disk seems to be the best choice for sweeper, as it sucks up drain mana, doesn't touch your lands, and takes care of anything else.

Quote
  1  Ancestral Recall
  1  Time Walk
  4  Standstill
  4  Mana Drain
  4  Force of Will
  3  Stifle
  4  Nevinyrral's Disk

After putting aside the 'meat' of the deck, we're left with 14 mana sources (making the total number of sources 28):

Quote
  1 Mountain
  4 Island
  4 Volcanic Island
  1 Wooded Foothills
  1 Flooded Strand
  1  Black Lotus
  1  Lotus Petal
  1  Mox Sapphire

and, 11 utility slots:

Quote
  3  Misdirection
  4  Fire/Ice
  4  Lightning Bolt

First lets address the remainder of the mana-base.  In testing I found that, especially games 2&3, the deck needed its off-color mana more than it can get it.  In spite of stifle becoming increasingly popular, I would argue that more than two fetchlands are required, and they should swap for some of four basic islands in the above build.

On the other hand, is a desire to run more moxen in order to drop standstills faster, and use man-lands more quickly.  While this may seem like an obvious choice, I can guess at Shockwave's reasons for not running more 0 cc artifacts:
1) They can't be cast under a landstill
2) The deck is color-hungry already
3) They die to Nevinrryal's Disk

Both the desire to run more non-basics, and the desire to use artifacts must be weighed while considering a card that has become less popular, but severely cripples landstill: bloodmoon.  The only answer in Rich's deck (MD or SB) is the disk, a 4cc sorcery-speed answer that takes a turn to work.  What else can be done?


The next issue, utility slots, needs to be handled alongside choosing the secondary color.  Out of the four other colors, Red, Black, and White offer interesting options (including sideboard options):

Red-
Fire/Ice (and other point removal to clear the way for standstill)
Gorrilla Shaman (doesn't survive disk, but keeps in LD theme)
REB (a favorite against control)
Rack and Ruin (and other assorted artifact hate)

Black-
the brokeness (Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will, Mind Twist?)
Coffin Purge (re: Dragon)
Removal (Smother, Edict, etc)
Nether Spirit (one more thing to beat or chump with)
Duress (adds disruption, clears the way for big plays: standstill, disk)

White-
Swords to Plowshares (best removal in the game)
Decree of Justice (another uncounterable win)
Meddling Mage (a long shot, but might be a decent bullet)
Sacred Ground (I haven't tested the Workshop matchup, but it looks bad)

These should be weighed and substituted along with a number of tools from blue in order to maximize the contribution of the secondary color.


Another concern I have from testing experience is the deck's dependence on drawing standstill.  Often it seems that unless I'm able to drop one early, I can't draw enough answers when compared with other control draw engines.  Would brainstorm (with more fetches), impulse, or even AK fit into some builds?  It seems that the deck won't have the mana to both swing with lands and cast these EOT, but it feels like a back-up plan (for standstill) and the ability to dig would make the deck more consistent.


I'm not going to post any potential builds (for Ub or Uw) until I get some feedback, but hopefully this generates some discussion so we can start eliminating sub-optimal choices.

[Shock Wave]

Quote I do not think this deck necessarily needs Misdirection.

Quote Another concern I have from testing experience is the deck's dependence on drawing standstill.  Often it seems that unless I'm able to drop one early, I can't draw enough answers when compared with other control draw engines.

Misdirection is just as much of a weapon against control as any other tool in the deck. As we've both concluded, Landstill suffers a little in the "Library Manipulation" department. In the control mirror, the early game is usually a stand-off where one of 2 things is happening:

1) You're trying to force through a Standstill (where Misdirection is key)

2) You're trying to prevent your opponent from drawing cards (where Misdirection is again, key)

Indirectly, Misdirection is what helps solve Landstill's weakness in dropping that first Standstill. You should be content playing draw-go with your control opponent holding a handful of FOW/Misdirection. What usually happens is that eventually, you'll draw your Standstill, or your opponent will try and force through a card drawer. I honestly can't recall the last time I lost a counter war in the control mirror, simply because I have more pitch counters.

If you look at Landstill on paper, Misdirection looks extraneous. However, if you playtest the control mirror, it is hardly as much in your favour if you take them out.

On a final note, I'm still hacking away at the primer. I'd like to post it shortly after Dec.1, just to make sure that my analysis is consistent with the upcoming B/R list. In the primer, I've touched on U-based Landstill builds with every different colour splash and card choices for each build. I'll try and get it up ASAP.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Unless others have a burning desire to pursue this before December, this should probably be closed in anticipation of Shockwave's primer.

[Brendan]

I'm interested in seeing Shockwaves ideas on the green splash. Specifically, has an oath transformational sideboard been considered?

The idea may seem stupid since I have only ever played fish and not landstill, but good aggro decks look like they might cause trouble for this deck, despite the disks. Siding out stifles and misdirections for oath and critters sounds like an interesting plan.

[wuaffiliate]

the deck can also be taking in a slightly different direction such as this:

Lam Phan's Build:

//NAME: LamStill - Uw...  :oP to Shockwave
// Permission
        4 Force of Will
        4 Mana Drain
        3 Misdirection
        3 Mana Leak
        3 Stifle
// Removal
        4 Swords to Plowshares
        2 Decree of Justice
        4 Nevinyrral's Disk
// Goodies
        4 Standstill
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
// Mana Sources
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Library of Alexandria
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Faerie Conclave
        4 Tundra
        4 Wasteland
        2 Island
        1 Stalking Stones
        2 Flooded Strand
        1 Plains
SB:  4 Meddling Mage
SB:  4 Energy Flux
SB:  3 Chalice of the Void
SB:  4 Tormod's Crypt


My build:

//NAME: UwLandstill.dec
// BY: Al "wuaffiliate" Dubuc
        4 Force of Will
        4 Mana Drain
        3 Misdirection
        3 Stifle
        3 Impulse
        4 Standstill
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        4 Swords to Plowshares
        2 Decree of Justice
        4 Nevinyrral's Disk
        4 Tundra
        3 Flooded Strand
        2 Island
        1 Plains
        4 Faerie Conclave
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Library Of Alexandria
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Black Lotus
SB:  3 Tormod's Crypt
SB:  2 Chalice of the Void
SB:  3 Null Rod
SB:  3 Energy Flux
SB:  4 Meddling Mage

and here we have SpecialK's version, its 3 colours(his lazy ass gave it to me on mirc so its not in appr format ).

4 fow
3 misd
4 drain
3 stifle
3 disk
2 swords
2 bolt
3 f/i
4 standstill
2 decree
4 factory
3 conclave
4 waste
4 tundra
4 volcanic
1 lotus
1 sap
1 pearl
1 ruby
1 loa
1 strip mine
4 fetch
1 Island

I just think showing the other side if landstill will be very important here.

this being said, we may as well close this for now. the primer should shed alot of light onto this deck, since not many people know much about it.

[waSP]

I don't see any reason why not to begin discussing this now.  It's not going to lose anything Dec. 1 unless Mana Drain gets axed.  And that would be destructive for the format.

I wonder why Lightning Bolt gets played in this deck.  I run Powder Kegs in those slots (well not those slots exactly, I run 3) and I find that they are absolutely amazing in mana screwing powered opponents.  If you look at this deck from a mana denial view, they are amazing.  Also if Long drops a LED early, you can hose their mana engine with the kegs.  Richard, how necessary have you found the bolts to be in your U/R build?  I think in most cases a Maze of Ith would work equally well (not against 'phids), and possibly much better (stops aggro's fatter creatures until you can protect a disk).  It hurts your tempo a little, but it is especially effective in the mirror.  Any thoughts on Maze main?

I tried AK's (0 Intuition) and I tried Brainstorms.  AK tends to be good if you don't NEED to counter right away.  AK will build your position over time.  Brainstorm is a nice boost, but you'll feel your lack of card drawing if you don't win immediately (over the course of 4-5 turns, immediately with this deck).

4 Stifles is AMAZING.  I even run Teferi's Response to supplement the card advantage.  I assume you had them earlier on and eventually cut them for, at least what seemed to be, stronger cards.

4 Faerie Conclave isn't completely necessary.  I also like to run a single Morphling in case I come up against URphid or Mono-U packing B2B or Blood Moon, since they can protect their game winners.

[Shock Wave]

Quote I wonder why Lightning Bolt gets played in this deck.

Everyone wonders why Lightning Bolt gets played in this deck. I'm not brushing you off, it's just that I've addressed all these issues in the primer and I don't want to comment on a bunch of small points individually. I'll do my best to get it up ASAP.

Quote It's not going to lose anything Dec. 1 unless Mana Drain gets axed.

No, it won't. However, taking a primer into consideration, the new B/R list may affect how some matchups are played out, and if those match-ups even exist any longer.

[Grand Inquisitor]

This is from a PM by jhaggs:

Quote
I have been running landstill for about a month now.  Ironically, its virtually the same type of build (as Shockwave's), except that I maindeck shamans and chalices over the bolts.

   The reason that I wanted to send you this PM is to say that I agree with your logic in regards to misdirection.  In misdirection's place I have been running chain of vapor which has proven to be an absolute bomb against many decks, espcially decks that run artifacts (wire/stack/scpeter/metalworker/ect.)  In addition, chain of vapor has great synergy because often times you will not have any nonland permanents out in play.  Therefore, your opponent is unable to bounce it back to you.  By the way, chain is also pretty savage against fish creatures with curiousity on them.

I am VERY interested in what the community thinks about this card in this deck.  I am undecided about which deck to bring to gencon and Landstill is high on my list.

...in case waSP or others have opinions on the matter.\n\n

[Ric_Flair]

This may sound retarded, but has any tried cards that cycle for effect with Standstill?  This would essentially allow you to "cast" spells while your opponent couldn't.  Plus all of the good cards that cycle for effect are blue and red.  At least Shoreline Ranger deserves a look given the mana hungry nature of the deck.  I offer this with no testing whatsoever, but merely as a hypothetical.  \n\n

[dicemanX]

The thing is though, if you have Standstill down, you're probably doing very well as it is. Since the deck is designed to function under Standstill, there isn't much need for cycling effects. The only cycling effect that I could foresee being useful is Decree of Justice for all of the U/W players. This might be overkill though.

My only concern is those Keeper players that use 2xDoJ themselves, which can be a good weapon against Landstill.

[leviat]

Quote The only cycling effect that I could foresee being useful is Decree of Justice for all of the U/W players. This might be overkill though.

My only concern is those Keeper players that use 2xDoJ themselves, which can be a good weapon against Landstill.

It's interesting that you mention that. If I were worried about a metagame that played a lot of DoJ, I would happily swap a couple of Fire/Ice with Slice and Dice. It allows me to burn and draw while under a Standstill. It's tempting to say that it might almost be superior to Fire/Ice 'cept for the fact that it doesn't pitch to FoW.

[slycaptainfox]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Nov. 25 2003,10:35)This is from a PM by jhaggs:

Quote
I have been running landstill for about a month now.  Ironically, its virtually the same type of build (as Shockwave's), except that I maindeck shamans and chalices over the bolts.

   The reason that I wanted to send you this PM is to say that I agree with your logic in regards to misdirection.  In misdirection's place I have been running chain of vapor which has proven to be an absolute bomb against many decks, espcially decks that run artifacts (wire/stack/scpeter/metalworker/ect.)  In addition, chain of vapor has great synergy because often times you will not have any nonland permanents out in play.  Therefore, your opponent is unable to bounce it back to you.  By the way, chain is also pretty savage against fish creatures with curiousity on them.

I am VERY interested in what the community thinks about this card in this deck.  I am undecided about which deck to bring to gencon and Landstill is high on my list.

...in case waSP or others have opinions on the matter.

I recently put CoV in my mono u landstill.  I agree that it can work wonderfully, especially in a mono u build with limited forms of removal.  It is often exactly what you need to stop that threat that snuck onto the board early (stack, boa, random critter, etc.)
My landstill is based more around mana denial, playing
5 strips, 2 dustbowls, 3 powder kegs, and 4 disks.

I have only tested it in u and u/r builds but from what I've seen this could be a really strong addition to landstill.

P.S.
!chain combos with disk like old school capsize/disk!

[gregggggggggg]

With all of the instants in this deck, wouldn't Ischron Scepter have a place? Imprinting Ancestral, Mana Drain, or even Fire/Ice could have a lot of potential.

[Mellow D]

Scepter = Permanent, and Permanents in general aren't synergistic with Nevinyrral's Disk.

I'm looking forward to the Landstill primer which will likely explain why certain things aren't so hot in this deck.

[Shock Wave]

Quote Scepter = Permanent, and Permanents in general aren't synergistic with Nevinyrral's Disk.

I hope that puts to rest any further suggestions with respect to permanents. Permenants are the antithesis of the strategy this deck follows.

[wuaffiliate]

Quote (gregggggggggg @ Nov. 26 2003,13:37)With all of the instants in this deck, wouldn't Ischron Scepter have a place? Imprinting Ancestral, Mana Drain, or even Fire/Ice could have a lot of potential.

also you cant scepter under still so there is really no synergy with the deck.

[westredale]

RUN STONE!! Did that bring down the quality enough?

edit: shit I wasted my 150th post on this.\n\n

[Kerzkid11]

Why is 4 Nev. Disk used in this deck? Isn't it a little slow? You have counters, bolts and fire/ice so its not like you arn't going to be able to deal with creatures, or anything. It is synergistic to the deck, but 4 might be a little too much with it being 4 to cast and having to wait a turn to use.

[Shock Wave]

Quote Why is 4 Nev. Disk used in this deck? Isn't it a little slow?

Nevinyrall's Disk is what *makes* this deck. Just because it costs 4 to cast, that doesn't necessarily make it slow. Consider this: If it resolves (which it should if you have the balls to cast it), you clear the board of everything except your win conditions. That's a good thing. Consider resolving a Disk against something like Mud, or Dragon, or even Keeper. It is an absolute house.

[pernicious dude]

Additionally, it turns late game Standstill into a bomb against absolutely any deck,
instead of something you hold to pitch to Force.
Clear the board, then pay 1U to either draw three cards or win target game.

It's the innovation of running four Disks that make this a viable deck.

@Westredale - actually, I'm running 3 Disk 1 Stone.
I'm not totally sure yet, but it's been pretty good.
On the plus sides, it comes down sooner.
I often Drain 3 mana spells but rarely 4 or more.
Late game or after Draining a Roar it can be played and used at once.
I can play Standstill after Stone and not lose the Standstill when I clear the board.
On the downside, you can't often leave five lands randomly untapped,
so they have a lot more chances to blow it up.
I wouldn't run more than one, and I'm siding it out against aggro and combo.\n\n

[Razor]

Quote It's the innovation of running four Disks that make this a viable deck.

Well said!  You've hit the nail right on the head.

Mono-U Control (BBS) dismissed Standstill early because it couldn;t reliably gain early board control.  But, I watched Richard relentlessly test and tweak his rogue LandStill decks since mid-2002.  He has transcended both negative criticism and poor results as have the pioneers of all accepted decks.

Note that all of today's top decks were once rogue decks.

Some of his older advances included Trade Routes with Powder Kegs.  It took Rich awhile to learn that Disk was better.  He piloted UR Landstill in Feb.2003 at the TMD NE championships with a 2 Disk, 2 Keg configuration.  I recalled that Disk was an old, old staple blue global fix.

Rich has single-handedly polished up tarnished, forgotten, old Disk into a 'new' piece of 'Still tech.

I was astounded when they printed Teferi's Response as a blue card when it ought to have been UW or even 1W.  Rich quickly used 3 maindeck to protect his men and to draw even more cards.  I was amazed recently when I noticed that Rich had completely dropped Responses in favour of his new favourite tech: Stifle which has proven even more amazing for Landstill.  I can't wait to read about it in his primer.

Overall, I marvel at Landstill's synergies.

Aside: I have tried to stop Rich's various incarnations of Landstill with my various and sundry rogue creations.  The only cards that seem to consistently bother him are: Blood Moon, Null Rod, and Dwarven Miner.

I think I need to work on making Troll Ascetic a Type 1 menace with which to survive his Disks.  I enjoyed watching Diceman's Sneaky Penumbra Wurms minimize the impact of Rich's Disks last weekend.\n\n

[bebe]

Running the disks definately make it a viable deck but Rich took the deck much farther. Remember that we started playing Still decks at Leon's with three disks and two kegs and three psionic blasts right at its inception. Rich added red to mix which was a major change ( all the early were monoblue). He then chose the right mix of counters and burn to supplement the deck for the current meta. Every card now woks in harmony the deck's philosophy. Kudos to Rich.

Also Rich kept with the deck ( I gave up playing it for Fish was really my baby at the time). Rich's experience with the deck really makes a difference as anyone who has played knows how easy it is to misplay a match. I watched Rich beat dicxemanx by icing a key land and stifling a symbiotic wurm for the win. Experience is very important as I don't know that i could have won that game.

[jshields]

i know it is a long shot, but does anyone else think that the u/w build looks similar to proteus oath?  the deck plan is completely different, but a proteus staff could stack the deck in whatever way you wanted and you would not even have to worry about using the goblin charbelcher.   what can i say?  stacking is good

[jshields]

its been a little bit and I am wondering where the link to this deck's primer is.  it looks like it could be a decent budget build deck and I already have been playing this new design and love how it works.  Go go faerie conclave!

[BreathWeapon]

Why aren't Cunning Wishs being used? They seem rather logical to me given the nature of the deck.

[Shock Wave]

Quote Why aren't Cunning Wishs being used? They seem rather logical to me given the nature of the deck.

Heh. Please explain. What is "logical" about the inclusion of Cunning Wish? How is it that the "nature of the deck" makes them a logical inclusion? What do you intend to wish for?

Have you played the deck? If so, that means you understand what the problem match-ups are. If you understand what the problem matchups are, you'll also understand that there is nothing you can wish for that will help you. If you haven't played the deck, I suggest reserving comments about what you feel are "logical" inclusions.

[BreathWeapon]

Woah dude, no need to come down with an attitude ... I didn't realize I was consulting with the Jesus Christ of deck building.

My reasoning behind Cunning Wish is because Lightning Bolt has been incredibly sub-optimal in every match up i've played once I hit the Top 8 decks. Its pretty pathetic removal in and of itself and doesn't speed your kill up significantly ... which is the reason I think U/w or even U/w/r Landstill for Plows and Decrees is a lot better.

That said, it seems like the deck doesn't have a sufficient number of MD cards that people wont blink at and say, "Wtf?"
Cunning Wish could work well by moving tempermental cards like MisD, Stifle etc to the SB while giving you easy access to Hurkyl's, R&R and Red/Blue elemental blasts, Teferi's Response and a Fact or Fiction for more flexible avenues of card draw. I can't tell you how good Teferi's response is vs Scepter.dec. C.Wish is like a Tool Box version of Nev Disk and additional Drain sink. The deck needs to alleviate some of its pressure on Disc and Standstill, and Cunning Wish should effectively do just that. I also think its pretty important to have access to Hurkyl's/R&R game 1 vs Stacker and Mask ... not saying you'll live long enough vs either to use it tho'.

Frankly, the archetype has huge issues with quality Aggro that needs to be adressed. Lightning Bolt is not cutting it, U/w's SB is lacking and U/w/r loses MD slots to compensate for the size of the Manabase and its just begging for every form of LD under the sun.

[Grendal]

My play group has a gaming night every tuesday, where we usually pick 2 popular archetypes and go at it over and over again.   After reading some of Shockwave's post I went ahead and proxied up his version of Landstill (non-bolt version) to test out.

Whoa...  I was really amazed with the deck.   It had an insanely good matchup vs MUDD/Stacks variants...   It also had a very good matchup vs Keeper.   The only matchup that I thought game 1 was not in its favor was with the dragon matchup, yet if you look at the sideboard you will quickly realize that even if Dragon squeeks out a win game 1, it will play hell at doing so in games 2 and 3.

I didn't get the chance to test it vs. Hulk or any other deck out there, but thus far I am very impressed with the deck.   Its sort of Suedo-Draw Engine of (Disk / Teferri / Stifle / Standstill) is just great.   When I finally got into the swing of playing it, I found that against most decks (early that is) that Fire/Ice was a sort of mini-time walk, and the same was very much true for Stifle.   Stifle exspecially in control mirrors shined very bright, where the norm is to leave fetchland untapped to use as possible sources of blue counterspell mana in the event that the opponent has a strip mine, only to have there land stifled away.

I did however have some questions after playing the deck, and wanted to get some feedback.

Do you take a more aggressive role with the deck, in that you immediatly beginning pressing with attacks as soon as you get man lands into play, or do you more often take a more control aspect?

A few of my findings...

1.) Versus Keeper I found that when he gave my Standstill's respect, it usually turned out to not go in his favor, where when he just said "screw it" and broke the standstill to keep tempo, that he usually had the better game.

2.) Versus MUDD I found that with the number of permission spells, not to mention that a resolved Nevy's Disk basically means game over for them, that this game was so heavily in Landstill's favor it wasn't funny.

That being said... I am very impressed with your latest work Richard...  I to am highly anticipating reading your Primer on this deck.

- Grendal

[waSP]

Richard, BreathWeapon is correct in telling you that you have major problems with good aggro.  Despite the claims that it is quite dead, it is still playable, especially now that control has begun to return to the fore of the meta (at least in my eyes).

I'd go as far as to say that you can't beat any quality aggro deck more than 2 of 10 games.  A quality aggro deck would be the flexible variety (a good amount of threats with some answers maindeck).  A couple good examples of decks that you can't beat were in the top 8 of Crazy Con 2.  Myself and Sam Larsen both just rolled over the single LandStill deck there.  He went 4-3 (including top 8), losing to myself once and Sam twice.  I just feel like that matchup is unwinnable.  have you had the same troubles?

I'm going to try to outline two of the problems you have with those types of decks.  Tell me if I'm not clear enough, I've put a bit of work into Landstill, but haven't figured out how to beat quality aggro without giving everything else up.

1. Card advantageous creature base
  Manlands are a very nice example of the dual function of creature cards.  They tap for mana when you don't need them to attack.  These also hurt your standstill tempo.
  Call of the Herd seems deadly.  3/3's are huge against you, and even though bolts help, you need to do more than just stop this 1 creature.
  River Boa.  River Boa single handedly wins if it resolves (barring a stupid play, terrible, terrible luck, etc..).

2.  5 Strips + Maindeck creature removal (StP, Naturalize, Deed, burn)
  Your kill condition is very vulnerable, dying to myriad spells.  Your opponent's ability to deal with your threats should negate the advantage you can get from your 5 strips, stifle, standstill, disk.

[Shock Wave]

Quote Woah dude, no need to come down with an attitude ... I didn't realize I was consulting with the Jesus Christ of deck building.

You can't be for real. You post a one-liner about what you claim to be a "logical" inclusion with absolutely no explanation and *I* am the "Jesus Christ" of deck building? Whatever.

Quote My reasoning behind Cunning Wish is because Lightning Bolt has been incredibly sub-optimal in every match up i've played once I hit the Top 8 decks. Its pretty pathetic removal in and of itself and doesn't speed your kill up significantly ... which is the reason I think U/w or even U/w/r Landstill for Plows and Decrees is a lot better.

Well, I guess we've been playing 2 different Landstill decks then. Lightning Bolt has been an extremely efficient method of removal and has never let me down against quick aggro decks. Lightning Bolt does not speed up your kill significantly? Well consider this: The majority of the time, Landsitll deals 2 damage per turn with 1 attacker. Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage in one shot. The possibility of dealing 5 or more damage in one turn is huge with this deck, as it lessens the amount of turns you'll need to attack in order to win.

If you think multicolour Landstill is the way to go, then by all means go for it. I've had no success with the decks and do not feel a colour splash is warranted.

Quote I'd go as far as to say that you can't beat any quality aggro deck more than 2 of 10 games.

Well, that's a pretty brave statement. I don't know if we've been playing different decks or the matchup against aggro has just been terribly unlucky for you. You can always PM me for a game and test out these "unwinnable matchups".

Quote I'm going to try to outline two of the problems you have with those types of decks.  Tell me if I'm not clear enough, I've put a bit of work into Landstill, but haven't figured out how to beat quality aggro without giving everything else up.

1. Card advantageous creature base

Call of the Herd isn't half of the problem you claim it to be. You need at least 2 turns to cast it, barring some fortunate acceleration. If I drop a factory, it is a 1/1 trade, until you flash it back. If I drop 2 factories, your Calls are useless, because there is no way in hell that you can disrupt my mana base. That's another reason why I rock aggro decks, my mana base is close to untouchable. If you want to flirt with Teferi's Response or Stifle, by all means, charge with your Wasteland.

River Boa is admittedly very, very bad. However, it is counterable, and if you're playing with them they are the only spells I really need to reserve a counter for. Game 2 and 3 are pretty bad for you, considering that I am bringing in Maze of Ith. Once I draw one, it's almost curtains, because you won't be able to get rid of it.

Quote 2.  5 Strips + Maindeck creature removal (StP, Naturalize, Deed, burn)
 Your kill condition is very vulnerable, dying to myriad spells.  Your opponent's ability to deal with your threats should negate the advantage you can get from your 5 strips, stifle, standstill, disk.

You do realize that walking into Teferi's Response is almost a sure way to lose the game, right? If you try to Wasteland early, and find Stifle, it is a huge swing in tempo advantage from which you will most likely not recover.

I'm really shocked at the conclusions you've come to. They seem to be very inconsistent with what my testing has proved for me. I recently played in Landstill a highly powered metagame and split 1st and 2nd with Dragon. There was 1 blazing fast Goblin deck in the top 8, much faster and problematic than any deck running Call of the Herd could ever be, and I still won. I've no reason to be concerned about any other aggro deck, lest some new aggro threat rear its head.\n\n